RampUp Seattle 2018 Recap: Personalization, Experimentation, and More

We’re back from RampUp Seattle! While we experienced two brief rain showers, the event itself was bright, sunny, and illuminating. With many great speakers and panelists, it was hard to pick just three insights.

Insight 1: The bar for personalization is low—so low even you can reach it.

That’s a quote from our opening speaker, Nicole Perrin, senior analyst at eMarketer. Well, the first part is what she said, the second part is my inference. Lots of brands are feeling like they’re falling behind in personalization, but the reality is that very few—just 5%—of marketers say that they feel like they’re doing hyperpersonalization across channels in real time. There’s a lot of room for brands to make incremental changes and win quickly, they just need to jump on it.

“There’s a lot of wins you can have when you sign with an identity manager. You don’t have to wait until the end goal [to get the win],” said Chip Reno, senior advanced analytics manager at T-Mobile.

Insight 2: Experimentation is the path forward for marketers.

Everyone’s doing it, and everyone’s making mistakes, according to Vadim Tsemekhman, director of product management of WalmartLabs. In fact, if you’re not making mistakes, then you might not be doing it right. The key is learning from them.

Getting it wrong is just a part of trying new tactics and technology, but be sure to fix your problems before you scale them. “Optimization is your friend,” said Tesäen Chavis, DMP Owner at Uber. Don’t be afraid to turn off an audience if it’s not working, but you’ve got to test that audience before you can optimize your campaign.

Insight 3: Measurement still matters.

This might be obvious, but it’s especially important when trying out new personalization tactics, new audience segments, or new channels like advanced TV.

“When it comes to TV, measure how you’re doing right now by getting your analytics in place, and then align [your tactics with] your business objectives,” said Mark Myers, VP of sales for iSpot.tv. This can actually be your way into adopting advanced TV and implementing people-based tactics in the channel, rather than an afterthought to targeting.

And when it comes to customer centricity, “what you measure and how you measure matters the most,” according to Tsemekhman.

Bonus: We had a pretty exciting post RampUp celebration, and we got to cheer on the Seattle Mariners to victory over the Los Angeles Angels!

The team is named as such in reference to the marine culture that is so integral to the city of Seattle. However, their mascot is the Mariner Moose. Here’s the history according to Wikipedia:

In 1990, a contest for children 14 and under was held to select a mascot for the team under then-owner Jeff Smulyan. Out of 2,500 entries received, the club chose the “Mariner Moose,” originally submitted by Ammon Spiller of Ferndale, Washington.[1] The Moose made his debut on April 13, 1990,[2] dancing on the field at the Kingdome to “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” by Timbuk 3.

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